Intercepts

By Frank Tiboni, Matthew French

Apr 26, 2004

DIMHRS amnesia

The Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System has been described as the world's largest and most ambitious personnel management system. Yet strangely, it almost slipped the mind of some Army officials.

This summer, the Army Human Resources Command must provide the service's data for DIMHRS, but organization officials almost forgot about the information drop, sources say.

Army HR Command just hired a systems integrator to do the prep work in time to meet the deadline. The vendor started work in mid-April, and a formal announcement of the winning contractor is expected this week.

The Defense Department awarded the DIMHRS contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. in September. A military official working on the $281 million contract described the six-month mark as "do-or-die time" for the program because the company's information technology division in Herndon, Va., must produce a design plan for merging 79 HR systems that will connect with more than 400 others.

It was a close shave, but it looks like "do" is back on, at least for the Army's part.

Groundbreaking program

National Security Agency officials can't talk much about their work, but they have a success story that's just waiting to be told.

NSA awarded the $2 billion Project Groundbreaker contract to an industry team led by Computer Sciences Corp. in 2001 to update and manage hardware and software at the code-making and code-breaking intelligence agency.

According to an industry official familiar with the project, the team, known as the Eagle Alliance, has installed more than 10,000 desktop computers at NSA's offices in Fort Meade, Md., and the Washington, D.C., region, and met the 30-month computer infrastructure deadline.

The ultra-secretive agency initiated a study dubbed Project Groundbreaker II in 2002 to determine if it could give vendors control of the hardware and software at its listening posts and cryptography centers around the world.

Project Groundbreaker II could increase the program's value to $10 billion, putting the Eagle Alliance in line for a significant raise.

Keane advice

The four-star Army general who insisted that U.S. and coalition forces receive a Blue Force Tracking system before last year's invasion of Iraq now consults for ABC News.

Gen. John "Jack" Keane, former Army vice chief of staff, said April 18 he would not have recommended that the Coalition Provisional Authority shut down the newspaper of Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The CPA decision sparked the latest violence in Iraq.

Keane retired from the Army in October. In February, he joined the board of directors of General Dynamics Corp.

The New York City native and baseball fan also has a strong opinion on the war in Iraq, but he didn't offer it on television.

Druyun's downfall

The book closed last week on Darleen Druyun, the Air Force's former principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition and management.

She pleaded guilty April 20 to a single felony count of conspiracy for discussing employment with a top Boeing Co. official while overseeing the Air Force's negotiation of a $20 billion deal to lease 100 refueling aircraft from the company.

Druyun, 56, will be sentenced Aug. 6 and could receive up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to an April 20 statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

In an April 20 statement, Boeing officials described the U.S. Attorney's action as "another step toward concluding a very disappointing chapter in the company's 88-year history."